Attacked
Attacker
Posted on 06/30/2008 1:01:24 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Eight weeks after being stomped into a coma, the victim of a pitiless beating from a towering Serbian thug is slowly improving - though he still cannot speak or move on his own.
Bryan Steinhauer remains in "a semicoma," able to make eye contact or blink once to answer questions with a "yes," said his best friend since childhood.
"He's definitely more aware," said Theo Bacon, 21, who visited the 22-year-old victim Friday night in a rehabilitation center. "It could be a month - or two years. It's not known when he will break out."
Steinhauer's mother, Marilyn, was leaving their Brooklyn home Saturday with a bouquet of daffodils for her injured son.
"He's improving a little bit," she said before heading for the center. "It's very slow, but he's improving."
The Steinhauers have maintained a grim watch on their son since the May 4 beating, just two weeks before the honor student was set to graduate with his degree in accounting.
Bryan had a job lined up with the prestigious accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Instead, the Steinhauers - dad a systems analyst, mom a retired teacher - watch their son for even the tiniest indication of good news.
"His family is devastated," Bacon said. "They really can't believe this is happening to their only child."
Bacon, who has known Steinhauer since they were 9-year-olds growing up in Brooklyn, said he sees signs of progress in the Binghamton University honors student.
"I honestly feel he recognizes people around him," said Bacon, of Harlem. "He can understand what people are saying. ... Sometimes he can respond to questions. He blinks once for yes."
Attendants occasionally lift Steinhauer from his bed into a wheelchair. Although he can't move himself, it appears he escaped paralysis despite the brutal beating that left him with skull fractures and a swollen brain, Bacon said.
The injured man's accused assailant, 6-foot-9, 260-pound Miladin Kovacevic, remained free in his homeland Saturday after skipping out of the U.S. with an illegally provided passport.
The college basketball player was walking around in Serbia as if nothing had happened, one friend said.
Kovacevic was avoiding his hometown of Kula - but only to dodge reporters, not law enforcement.
His mother conspired with a now-suspended Serbian diplomat to slip Kovacevic out of the U.S., officials in Serbia said.
Kovacevic had surrendered his passport to Broome County authorities when he was released June 6 on $100,000 bail, but he got a second "emergency" passport and fled.
Serbian officials plan a hearing this week to decide the fate of Vice Consul Igor Milosevic and his New York boss, Consul General Slobodan Nendovic.
Bacon had nothing but venom for the man charged with repeatedly stomping a helpless Steinhauer.
"He's just a beast," Bacon said. "He doesn't have any conscience or heart. He's a coward for not facing up to a situation he created. He's not a man."
Authorities say the assault began after Binghamton sophomore Melissa Cartagena was groped in the crowded Rathskeller bar in the early morning hours of May 4.
Steinhauer - nicknamed Waldo for his resemblance to the bespectacled character in the "Where's Waldo?" cartoons - always behaved like a gentleman, Bacon insisted.
"Bryan is a respectful guy," Bacon said. "Bryan is not stupid. He's never going to put himself in a position to fight a guy four times his size."
Despite a recovery measured in the smallest of movements, Bacon said he remained optimistic about his friend's resiliency.
"In my heart, I totally believe he will make a full recovery," Bacon said. "It's what I tell him every time I see him: 'Keep pushing forward, keep getting stronger every day.'"
Attacker
Why did this thug do this?
Not excusing the behavior, but something motivated him or provoked him and this seems plausible to me.
Authorities say the assault began after Binghamton sophomore Melissa Cartagena was groped in the crowded Rathskeller bar in the early morning hours of May 4.
It often starts with a woman in a bar.
It sounds like the Serb was groping the girl and the victim asked him to stop. Some folks don’t like being asked to knock it off. It makes them feel like they’ve been one-upped.
Someone should have put this Serb out of our misery.
An attack like this should preclude any release on bail. This man was a clear threat to anyone else he came in contact with.
The judge should have his ass kicked for setting him free, but judges go about their merry little buiness oblivious to the damage they do along the way.
Somebody ought to put a round through the attacker’s gut.
This guy is around my age and hometown. I don’t know him, I’ve probably never seen him before but it has a small effect on me.
I hope the Serb gets mauled by a few mad dogs.
Not excusing the behavior, but something motivated him or provoked him and this seems plausible to me
Well alrighty then. I guess then when his parents find this poor oppressed Serb, you'll understand when they blow his brains out. After all, his parents are only "expressing themselves". Not that we should condone this kind of behavior, but it just seems plausible to me too.
Maybe he targeted a Jew to protest our Zionist Occupied Government.
Kill him. (Yes I mean it.)
BS. If the guy hates America so damn much, why was he here playing basketball for an American College?
The guy is a damn thug and he needs to spend the next 20 years playing basketball with his own kind on the Attica or Sing Sing 'intramural' teams.
If the Srebs don't ship this punk back, I'd vote to bomb their asses again.
Coma boy was out drinking and fondled someone else's woman. Her boyfriend objected, so Coma boy headbutted him. Our Serbian friend interjects himself and stomps coma boy into the ground.
Reads to me like the victim brung it upon himself.
One of the two men charged along with the 6-foot-9 Kovacevic said yesterday that he wanted to personally hunt down the missing assault suspect. "That jackass did it, and he deserves to go to jail," said Sanel Softic, who was in the bar during the attack on honors student Bryan Steinhauer. "I wish I could catch him myself and bring him back here myself. I didn't do it, I didn't do anything." Softic said his girlfriend, Melissa Cartagena, was groped by someone inside the Rathskeller bar before the vicious May 4 stomping. But he insisted there was no reason for Kovacevic to come to her aid. "He's not my friend," said the 21-year-old, who hopes to become a state trooper. - LINK
I heard a rumor about a covert ops team volunteering to send in some people to visit the attacker. Hope it is true. His mother and that ‘diplomat’ both must be pieces of shi’ite.
This story needs to be vetted. The girl is dating the buddy of the beater. Maybe that’s what happened, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone lied for an aggressive friend.
Why is he being refered to as the ‘Serb’, is something else
also going on here?
I'd grope her.
“Maybe he targeted a Jew to protest our Zionist Occupied Government.”
Well, he sure looks like the stereotypical Nazi. Didn’t those Serbs go for Hitler in WWII?
Too many versions of this story that don’t agree with each other in the details. The first one I found and linked seemed to suggest Steinhauer started a fight, the article you linked suggests otherwise.
Only thing you can really be sure of is that bad things happen in bars over women.
I guess it’s a reference to a foreign national. If he had been British, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see it mentioned like Serb was. I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that. I don’t think all Serbs would have done this.
I mentioned it because I couldn’t remember the perp’s name.
And therein lies the problem....
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